C. A. Winter Blog

The Dam Broke C. A. Winter Nine-fifteen. Hour of the beginning of the end. It was drizzling in places around me and I had just wrapped up a chapter in Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. The chapter was Titled “The Bust” and it began with a drug bust on the Ken Kesey property and ended on a man named Norman having difficulty getting adjusted to the life of the Merry Pranksters. During the chapter, words struck me so I grabbed my Trusty Legal Pad and jotted them down as they came to me. The first was a conjoined comical word ‘christalmighty’ and I liked the way it read on the page. The rest I can recite to you but that is not at all the point of this little escapade through my life. After the chapter I was feeling jovial in the lightning and rain in the comfort of my 2007 Buick Lucerne so I popped my Airpods in and listened to a Top Hits of 1969 playlist on the good old Spotify. In truth, I played ‘Dreams’ by Fleetwood Mac first, then queued up a handful of songs that stuck out to...

Small Animals  I’ve been thinking of killing small animals. A mouse. A cat. The neighbour’s chihuahua. Little thin tan body, black marble galaxy eyes and a jagged mouth that never shuts the fuck up. I picture myself over it, in their living room or laundry room. They’re asleep and I’m in their apartment with my hands firmly wrapped around the thing’s vibrating neck. Each breath, each heartbeat, I feel it between my fingers. And it’s barking, and I’m grinning and then I’m pushing its tiny triangular skull into the linoleum, the same Greywood linoleum I have in my unit, and it yips and gasps and its tiny little legs and feet come to a scurry then to a halt, and it is no more. I stand, and I wipe my furbally hands on my pants, and I leave through their door and walk swiftly into my own living space. There are no police called for a dead dog, there is no autopsy, there is no proof. One squirt, or two, of my Pinecone Bodyworks hand soap and all evidence and smell is washed away and I ca...

on another note, I was formulating a thought out of a wide variety of thoughts and memories, and I am trying to elaborate in a proper/informative fashion. I've been reading Tom Wolfe Electric Kool Aid Acid Test and in it, there were many places of reflection on ways of thinking I'd seldom thought about or even entertained since I was about 18. Right after highschool, I messed around Heavily with psychedelic drugs. LSD, Mushrooms, and MDMA primarily. And a full blown cocaine addiction on top of that. But I dropped acid maybe 30, 40 times. Now I'm five years clean. Woot woot. All that to say, I never really understood the spiritual parts of it; the typical 'universe experiencing itself' part or any of the good of it. But, now, after reading Electric Kool Aid, I've actually began to understand what exactly they mean, in ways that I didn't before. Specifically, on language and words and openness. Wolfe describes Kesey's words and thoughts etc about being ope...

Today I have begun a psychological test on myself involving dot-following and statement reinforcement. I created an application which has the user (me) follow a dot on the screen while reciting the opposite of the phrase displayed.  My theory is that through use of this program, I can rewire my brain to help overcome my social anxiety through reinforcement.  The exercise goes in five phases; onboarding, escalation, discomfort, cool-down, rewire. Onboarding is simple phrases such as Yes or Sun. Then escalation brings the statements up a notch with difficulty. I like bread. Then discomfort throws some seriously harsh statements in there for the user (me) to correct. At least one of the intense statements involves the problem at hand (i.e. social anxiety related) In cool down, we bring it back to onboarding-level statements. Then rewire says very fine-tuned statements that directly address the problem. The idea behind the phases is to breakthrough some kind of mental barrier and ...

 Ugh, the pain and agony. Everything sucks and my hands don't work and I refuse- I REFUSE- to do what I need to do. This, this, this fucking nonsense, this unrewarding chunk of writing. And guess what? Looked back at what it was before it is and man oh man does that suck. Sucks less, but sucks still. Not bad writing, just not a compelling introduction. You know how I could fix that? Put us in the scenario of the Prologue and not keep us at a distance. Makes sense that way anyways. Toss the guy in the moment, let him breathe in it, see it for what it is. This skull-speak I do doesn't work in the third anyways. The third is what this other novel will be in. Distant wavy third-burst. But this is First. Through the lens, in the skin, around the flesh. Right in the fucking skull, man. So yeah, I'm pissed and I'm going to be petty and let it get to me until I go to bed and then tomorrow I'm just gonna fucking push through these chapters. Hit the mid-point and I'm in a...